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irradiate the course of his demonstration, at the same time consummating oratorical excellence and unequalled statesmanship.

An intelligent English traveller has recorded the following personal sketch:

"The forehead of Mr. Webster is high, broad, and advancing. The cavity beneath the eyebrow is remarkably large. The eye is deeply set, but full, dark, and penetrating in the highest degree; the nose prominent and well defined; the mouth marked by that rigid compression of the lips by which the New Englanders are distinguished. When Mr. Webster's countenance is in repose, its expression struck me as cold and forbidding, but in conversation it lightens up; and when he smiles, the whole impression it communicates is at once. changed. His voice is clear, sharp, and firm, without much variety of modulation; but when animated, it rings on the ear like a clarion."

To this we may add the remark of another observer, touching his sense of personal propriety:-" Mr. Webster never appears before an audience without a due preparation. The habits of his mind partake of those in respect to his person. On all occasions when he is to be the chief speaker, he is carefully and tastefully dressed. I have seen him often in the U. S. Senate, and in the Court of the Supreme Judicial Tribunal-a glance at his person is sufficient to indicate whether or not he is to speak. A blue coat and buff vest, similar to that worn by Mr. Fox in Parliament, is his favorite dress for great occasions in the Senate; a black suit is chosen for the bar."

The great writer, statesman, patriot, and orator, whom we have thus considered, is now in the zenith of his fame and strength. Painting has never done justice to his massy figure and impressive features, nor has language yet adequately portrayed his extraordinary eloquence. There is a Doric substantiability about all his person, inimitable and unwasting, a loftiness of character in harmony with the divinest art, and which sculpture alone can fitly express. In coming centuries his noble form, wrought by kindred genius in speaking marble, towering from a colossal base of New England granite, and draped in that simple majesty which commands the admiring world, will rise to meet the sun in his coming; the earliest light of the morning shall gild it, and the parting day of American freedom "linger and play on its summit."

CHAPTER II.

EDWARD EVERETT,

THE RHETORICIAN.

A RIPE Scholar, graceful speaker, and consummate master of rhetorical art, is EDWARD EVERETT, of Massachusetts. Before the illustration of these points, we will present a few historical statements.

He was born in Dorchester, Norfolk County, on the 11th of April, 1794. Edward was the fourth in a family of eight children, and lost his father, a highly respectable clergyman, when he was but eight years old. His education, till he was thirteen years of age, was obtained almost exclusively at the public schools in Dorchester and Boston, to which latter place the family removed after his father's decease. In the Academy, at Exeter, N. H., under the tuition of Dr. Abbott, he completed his preparation for college. He entered Harvard. University in August, 1807, and graduated in 1811, with the highest honors of his class.

Under the influence and instruction of Rev. J. S. Buckminster and President Kirkland, he was induced. to select the profession of theology. In 1812 he was appointed Latin tutor in the University. In the

autumn of 1813, being then less than nineteen years of age, he was settled, as the successor of Buckminster, over the Brattle Street Church, in Boston. In addition to the ordinary duties of the ministry, he wrote and published a Defence of Christianity, which was regarded as an elaborate and able work.

Having been appointed by the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University, Professor of Greek Literature, he obtained a dismission from his congregation, and assumed his new functions at Cambridge, when under twenty-one years of age. To improve his health, and perfect his qualifications for the chair to which he had been called, he was permitted and enabled, by the corporation, to travel in Europe, and to reside some time at the principal foreign universities.

He embarked from Boston in the spring of 1815, immediately after the conclusion of peace with Great Britain. On arriving in Liverpool, he heard of the escape of Napoleon from Elba, and was in London when the battle of Waterloo was fought. From England he went to Germany, passed a few days at Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Leyden, and the other Dutch cities, and proceeded through Westphalia to Gottingen, in the kingdom of Hanover.

At this most celebrated German University he spent two years in assiduous study, and employed the vacations in excursions to the principal cities and universities of the North.

The winter of 1817 he spent in Paris, acquiring the Italian and modern Greek languages. Here he enjoyed the society of many eminent men, and acquainted him

self with several new branches of knowledge. In 1818, he again visited England, spent some time at Oxford and Cambridge, made excursions to Wales and the Lakes, Edinburgh, and the Highlands, passed a few days with Sir Walter, at Abbotsford, and became acquainted with Dugald Stewart, as well as with many other distinguished characters of England and Scotland.

In the autumn of 1818, he returned to France, and proceeded to Switzerland and Italy. He passed by the way of Lyons, Geneva, Chamouni, and the glaciers of Mont Blanc; made a circuit through Lausanne, Berne, Lucerne, Altdorf, and the Valais; crossed the Simplon to Milan; went through Lombardy to Venice, and then back over the Appenines to Florence. The winter was spent in Rome, in antiquarian research, and converse with distinguished men.

In the spring of 1819, he went to Naples; and after visiting the most interesting localities in that vicinity, crossed over to Bari, on the Adriatic; and thence travelled on horseback by the way of Lecce to Otranto. Thence he took passage to Corfu, and the coast of Al bania. Bearing letters to Ali Pacha from Lord Byron, he was received by that famous chieftain, at Yanina, with great kindness. Crossing Mount Pindus, and going north as far as the Vale of Tempé, he returned through Thessaly to Thermopylæ, passing by Pharsalia, over Mount Parnassus to Delphi, Thebes, and Athens. He then made an excursion over the Isthmus of Corinth to Sparta, and returning to the north, embarked in the Gulf of Volo for the Dardanelles, visiting the site of Troy and Constantinople.

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